255 items
The emergence of the independent republic of Liberia on the coast of West Africa in the mid-nineteenth century was a historically significant turn of events in several ways. Led by a Black American settler class that sought to rule...
The Will to Be Free: On the Declaration of Independence of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam
In his “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., wrote that “freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.” [1] His letter addressed his fellow clergymen amidst the...
Insurgent India: Purna Swaraj as Self-Determination
“At the stroke of midnight, when the world sleeps, India will awake to life and freedom.” These are the famous words of Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of India, that began his resonant “Tryst with Destiny” speech of August...
The Unilateral Declaration of Independence in Southern Rhodesia (later Zimbabwe)
The Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI) was the most polarizing event in the colonial history of Zimbabwe. Locally, regionally, and internationally, it sharpened differences of opinion with respect to independence, especially...
Gertrude Simmons Bonnin (Zitkala-Ša) and the National Council of American Indians: Leading the Way for Indigenous Self-Representation
Born on the Yankton Sioux Reservation in 1876, the same year as the Battle of Greasy Grass (known more commonly in US history as the Battle of Little Big Horn), Gertrude Simmons Bonnin grew up amidst a US-national culture of systemic...
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Yellow Fever 1793
Late in August 1793 Philadelphia was struck by a strange and virulent disease. Patients developed aches, chills, and fever, vomited black bile, and turned yellow. Some recovered, but many died. The yellow fever, as it was called, had...
Adella Hunt Logan: Suffragist and Educator
My new book, Princess of the Hither Isles , traces the life of my paternal grandmother, Adella Hunt Logan, who’s intrigued me for as long as I can remember. During my childhood, she felt like a major presence in my life. Not only was...
The Heart and Soul of Fannie Lou Hamer, An Extraordinary African American Leader
Fannie Lou Hamer was born October 6, 1917, in Montgomery County, Mississippi, to Ella and James Lee Townsend (her sharecropping parents), who taught her to never quit in her endeavors-a creed she tried to live by her entire life. Of...
The Persistence of Ida B. Wells: Reform Leader and Civil Rights Activist
In an 1892 speech, Ida B. Wells told her audience, “The way to right wrongs is to turn the light of truth upon them.” [1] She lived these words, determinedly and vocally confronting every social injustice she encountered. Wells (1862...
Ten Ways to Teach Rosa Parks
Adapted and reprinted with permission from The Nation [Issue of December 1, 2015] On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a Montgomery bus and was arrested. Her courageous action galvanized a yearlong community...
Juan Felipe Herrera: Poet Laureate and Pioneer of Chicano Literature
Juan Felipe Herrera, born to migrant parents Felipe Emilio Herrera and Lucha Andrea Quintana in Fowler, California, on December 27, 1948, is a writer unique for his unrelenting spirit of innovation. He boldly expands the boundaries of...
El enemigo de mi enemigo es mi amigo: Bernardo de Gálvez and the Battle That Saved the United States at Its Birth
“The enemy of my enemy is my friend,” goes the old adage, which is particularly apt when describing the relationship between Spain and the nascent United States during the War of American Independence. By 1775 when the war began,...
Antonia Pantoja, a Nuyorican Builder of Institutions
Antonia Pantoja was a fierce community organizer and builder of influential institutions. Throughout her life she created organizations that enhanced the lives of Puerto Ricans and other minoritized communities. She was a dreamer with...
Voices of Democracy: Jovita Idár, the Idár Family, and the Struggle against Juan Crow
In August 2023, the US Mint will release the Jovita Idár quarter, “the ninth coin in the American Women Quarters Program” authorized by Public Law 116–330. On its website, the Mint states that Idár’s “ideas and practices were ahead of...
Arturo Alfonso Schomburg: Archivist, Institution Builder, and Advocate of Global Black History
“The American Negro must remake his past in order to make his future.” So begins one of the most well-known essays of the Harlem Renaissance, “The Negro Digs Up His Past,” written by Arturo Alfonso Schomburg. Published in the March...
"All Should Have an Equal Chance": Abraham Lincoln and the Declaration of Independence
In many ways, the Gettysburg Address reflects the culmination of Abraham Lincoln’s lifelong admiration for the principles of the Declaration of Independence. As a young man in 1838, Lincoln responded to the wave of mob violence...
"Revered By All": The Declaration of Independence in the Reconstruction Era
Although it was the speech that redefined the conflict and effectively changed the meaning of the Constitution, Abraham Lincoln’s 1863 Gettysburg Address is often misunderstood today when it is not simply ignored, at least in American...
The Declaration of Independence as Mission Statement in the Age of Lincoln
At Gettysburg in 1863, Abraham Lincoln made the Declaration of Independence the moment of creation for the American republic from which all else had proceeded. In some mystical sense, the nation had been “conceived” in liberty and...
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